


Thinking

by Millixi77



Series: Animal Traits AU [3]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Animal Traits, Fluff, Multi, Slight Animalistic Tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 00:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17611766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Millixi77/pseuds/Millixi77
Summary: One would have thought that after all this time, people would have learned to keep their unwanted opinions to themselves. However, Kaede Akamatsu knew firsthand that people still had not learned to do that.Especially when it came to other people's relationship choices.It was tiring, to say the least.





	Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> Hewwo, in concept and execution this is probably ripping off Zootopia relationship problems, oof...
> 
> I hope it's good in spite of that! 😅

Most people thought that seeing rabbit features on another person meant that they were weak-willed. That they were quiet, easy to manipulate, naive or outright stupid. 

 

Their expectations were usually completely upended when they met Kaede Akamatsu. In smite of her small rabbit ears and soft, fluffy tail, she was anything but all the descriptors most people would think of when they saw her rabbit features. 

 

And the reactions were heavily split down the middle. 

 

Some people were just happy to meet a happy person, and didn't put much stock into her animal features. 

 

Others were… less pleasant. If they didn't try and ignore her, they tried to put her down and count her as insignificant, or tried to start beef with her for no real reason at all apart from being confrontational. Others tried to take her down with a fight. 

 

However those people seemed to forget that rabbits had claws as well, and that there was a good reason why rabbits were known for hopping most of the time. Their leg strength wasn't something to be taken lightly, and she made sure that she was as fit as possible. 

 

A few kicks to the head had been able to sort then out. Thoroughly. 

 

Sometimes people could be unbearably obnoxious, and she'd learned early on that their nonsense had to be stopped outright before they got any ideas. Luckily, as she grew older, people became less likely to try that nonsense, and she only rarely encountered people like that. 

 

She was happy for that. 

 

Really, after middle school, most of the really obnoxious behavior had leveled out, with only a few outliers to that behavior. Those particular outliers were, luckily, people she'd only needed to interact with for a short amount of time. Their behavior would be completely intolerable otherwise. 

 

As she'd grown older, her mentality had matured, as well as those of people around her. However, there was still something that most people didn't seem to like about her, and consistently found a problem with. 

 

And, of all things, it was her dating life. Not only that, it was something that she couldn't believe that people had a problem with. 

 

Apparently, it was an odd thing that she didn't really like dating people like her, who fell under the “prey” spectrum, and instead preferred dating people who were under the “predator” spectrum. 

 

She just wasn't attracted to people who either turned out to be doormats or uncomfortably cantankerous. Maybe it was just because of where she'd been raised, but people of her “type” never seed to have much personality apart from that. Not to mention that bit many of then actually lived there, for starters. 

 

She'd heard about the instinctive fear that some people of her spectrum felt when around people of the other spectrum, but she herself hadn't felt it ever since she was very little. Maybe it was due to naturalization, but she felt more comfortable with people on the predator spectrum than those on her own. Their scents were too soft, their personalities were either uncomfortably demure or dangerously aggressive whenever she met them, and their behavior seemed erratic to her. 

 

She had been insulted over that fact over the years, but she'd learned to take those remarks with a generous helping of salt. 

 

She wondered. What those people would think if they saw her current relationship. Most people had little problem with poly relationships, but seeing that she was the only person in the “prey” spectrum… 

 

She could hear the outlandish rumors already. How  _ scandalous _ ! 

 

She couldn't help but laugh at the thought. People could be so ridiculous as soon as it came to gossip sometimes. She was half sure that the only reason it existed was so people could try and exceed each other's ridiculousness in an environment where nobody was spared from their in madness.

 

“What's so funny?” Shuuichi asked. He sounded a bit concerned, not that she could blame him. She'd just been daydreaming, and she'd burst into laughter a bit out of nowhere. 

 

“I just remembered some people I knew before. The overly judgemental ones. Imagine what they'd think of me now? They'd probably be afraid for my sanity, if they weren't spreading rumors about it.”

 

“As if they wouldn't be doing both at this point.”

 

“You have a point there!” She snickered a little bit more before finally calming down. Her tail wiggled a little bit, and she sneezed. 

 

She stretched a little bit before she continued talking. “It's just funny to hunk of how needlessly judgemental people can't comprehend things like this. It's like they don't realize that most people don't really care about things like that any more.”

 

“It's kind of sad when you think about it,” Shuuichi said. “They not only lock themselves out of interactions with different people, but they drive away the people they're trying to ‘protect.’” Fittingly, he made air quotes as he said the last word. 

 

“Good intentions, bad execution.”

 

“Possibly unneeded intentions, actually.”

 

“I prefer cutting them a little slack.”

 

“That's true.”

 

“The question is if they  _ deserve  _ slack, you know!”

 

Kaede’s rabbit ears turned, and her vision soon followed. Kokichi had just spoken, but he wasn't anywhere in sight. 

 

She looked over to Shuuichi, who looked as surprised as she did. Could Kokichi be… 

 

She maneuvered herself to look underneath the couch she was sitting on. Bright purple eyes met her gaze almost immediately. 

 

“Boo!”

 

She started a little bit, and she could hear Shuuichi jump a little in the armchair.

 

“Surprise! You thought no one apart from you two were here, but I, Kokichi Ouma was present in the shadows!”

 

“How did you manage to hide under there?!”

 

“A magician never reveals his secrets!”

 

“Oh, very funny Kokichi! Come out, please!”

 

“Fine! But only because you said ‘please!’” And with that, Kokichi shimmied out from under the couch with ease. 

 

“Why were you under there anyway?” Shuuichi asked. 

 

“Long story short, it was a comfortable place to take a nap. Thank goodness for constant cleaning.” He yawned and stretched a bit, shaking himself a little. “And I woke up a few minutes ago and heard you conversation.”

 

“That explains it. But what do you mean if they ‘deserve’ slack, though?”

 

“It's pretty simple. Some of them actually have good intentions and are just scared of you getting hurt. They're just a little bit overzealous with their protectiveness. Most of them, however, just do it to be nagging assholes because they have nothing bettrr to do apart from bother people who are actually enjoying their lives.”

 

“Harsh,” Shuuichi said. 

 

“But it's true!” Kokichi shrugged. “It's not a nice truth, but there's no way to sugarcoat it.”

 

“You have a point there.”

 

Kaede sighed. “I usually try to ignore whatever they say, and forget about them. Most of them just liked nagging me. The ones who actually cared were actually able to understand that, yes, I know what I was doing and no, that I wasn't trying anything stupid. Talking to the others was like trying to drill through a cement wall. Tiring and noisy.”

 

“That's an oddly specific metaphor, but okay!”

 

They all snickered at that, before settling down. Kokichi climbed into the back of the couch and lounged there, while Kaede sprawls herself over its seat. Shuuichi adjusted his position on the armchair as well, and before long they found themselves falling into a comfortable silence. 

 

“You're not the only one who people couldn't stop being worried for, Kaede,” Shuuichi said. 

 

It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. “People bothered you a lot too?”

 

Shuuichi sighed. “Yes. Long story short, it's because I wasn't interested in the things people like me are typically interested. However, I'm not sure if anyone had any genuine intentions behind it, or if they were prying for the sake of the status quo.”

 

“Those sorts of people, huh?” Kaede tail stiffened a little at the thought. Some people didn't know when to quit, and those people were prime examples of them. Offering unneeded ‘advice’ on the daily, never seeming to understand the subtle jabs about how they'd offered the same advice for seven weeks straight, or outright insults about how they were broken records. 

 

“Those sorts of people,” Shuuichi said, sighing. His cat ears drooped and his tail hung limp. “Sycophants.”

 

“It seems like no one can be free of them.”

 

“You definitely can't,” Kokichi said. “They cut across the spectrum as well as all social classes. It's… annoying to think about, to say the least. Almost as annoying as it is to have to interact with them, in my opinion.”

 

“Some of them are gracious enough to stop talking after their standard little advice spiel and then scrutinize you from a distance,” Kaede said. 

 

“And the rest of them keep on talking to you after that as if the two of you are good friends and that they haven't been consistently insulting you for years,” Kokichi finished. 

 

Shuuichi groaned. “Just thinking of them is making me feel tired, please! Can we talk about something else, please, I'm begging you.”

 

“Aww… Maybe we could talk about something nicer, couldn't we?” Kokichi said. 

 

“ _ Maybe, _ ” Kaede echoed. 

 

Shuuichi let out a long-suffering sigh, and she and Kokichi burst into laughter. 

 

“Have fun at my expense, why don't you? When you two are on the same page, it can either be spectacular or terrifying.”

 

“And, uh, which one do we seem to be this time?” Kaede asked in between bouts of giggling. 

 

Shuuichi looked at her with a flat expression. “Terrifying.”

 

Kaede laughed so much that her stomach started to hurt. By the time she managed to recover, she heard the door being opened. That meant that Kaito and Maki were back from getting groceries! Her tail wagged a little as she rolled onto her back before sitting up. 

 

When Kaito and Maki got in they both looked irritated. They had the groceries, and on a lazy day like this, there shouldn't have been any traffic to worry about… 

 

“Did something happen?” she asked. 

 

“You could say that,” Kaito said. 

 

“If you count unsolicited observations as something,” Maki said, rolling her eyes. 

 

Once again, it didn't take long to figure out what was being talked about. 

 

“Do people  _ still _ have the mentality of ‘cats and dogs don't like each other’?”

 

“Apparently. They weren't even trying to be subtle about what they were saying, either. As if this is some sort of new phenomenon that they have to gossip about,” Maki said, tightening her grip in the plastic bag some of the groceries were in. The crinkle of plastic made Kaede’s ears twitch. “It's almost as if people get together because of their personality and not what secondary traits they have.” She went to the kitchen to put the groceries away. 

 

“Oh, how unheard of,” Kokichi said. 

 

“Not gonna lie, it got annoying pretty quickly,” Kaito said, following Maki. “I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them wanted to start a fight, or worse, discourse.”

 

Shuuichi hissed. “Discourse? Please no. I had enough of that years ago, and I'm pretty sure everyone else has, too.”

 

“People just want to start drama over anything and everything thee days, Kaede said. “It's kind of interesting that we were talking about that before you guys came in.”

 

“I'm tempted to start breaking noses over the issue at this point,” Maki said from the kitchen. “It's a completely unnecessary thing that people refuse to see eye to eye on. If semantics won't help, violence should. It  _ is  _ a universal language, after all.”

 

“As much as I'd like to support that course of action, we don't have to money to pay all those hospital fees for the people who are unfortunate enough to confront you,” Kokichi said. 

 

“Who said we had to pay?” Maki asked. “If I knocked them out stealthily enough in an area without security cameras, they wouldn't remember what hit them.”

 

“Interesting plan, please continue.” Of course Kokichi would encourage her… 

 

“Actually, don't,” Shuuichi said. “Knowing you two, it would end up as the next headline.”. A voice of reason, finally. 

 

“A little infamy wouldn't hurt, you know!”

 

“It sounds interesting, too,” Kaito chimed in. 

 

“Shuuichi’s right, you know,” Kaede said. “A little infamy wouldn't hurt initially, but it could spiral out of control pretty quickly.”

 

“You underestimate out skills, Kaede,” Kokichi said. “We wouldn't leave any traces!”

 

“And how do you know that?”

 

With that, Kokichi  _ smiled.  _

 

“Oh, please, not that face.”

 

“What's the matter? Scared?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“But I'm cute and the opposite of scary!”

 

“Not when you're smiling like that you aren't!”

 

“Beauty is such a fickle thing, isn't it?”

 

The sound of Kaito and Maki finally returning from the kitchen made Kaede feel relieved. 

 

“Kokichi, please, it's too early in the afternoon for this,” Kaito pleaded 

 

“Nonsense! It's never too early for a good dose of fear!”

 

“And now everything goes completely off track,” Shuuichi muttered. If it was said by anyone else apart from the people in this room, the tone of their voice would be less than amused. Shuuichi, however, couldn't help but find the humor in the situation. 

 

After being faced with it for so long, it was a bit of a given. 

 

“It's not like this wasn't expected, anyway,” Maki said, moving to sit down. 

 

“Aw, come on? You're all hanging me out to dry like this?”

 

“Yes.” It was a unanimous response. 

 

“You're all lucky I love you…”

 

“We know, we know,” Kaede said, smiling. 

 

“Wait why are you smiling like tha-- AAAH!” Kokichi has pounced at Kaito, and Kaito barely had any time to dodge before Kokichi started chasing him. 

 

Kaede looked to Maki and Shuuichi. 

 

“I'm recording it this time!” She brandished her phone victoriously. 

 

“This is betrayal!” Kaito definitely didn't like that. 

 

“All’s fair in love and war!”

 

“We'll see about that later!”

 

“‘Later’ is the key word there!”

 

“Oh, God dammit!”


End file.
